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The latest figures show an increase by 545 across hospitals and care homes - the largest in a week, although the death toll continues to trend downward overall.

He told the Sun: "I think by the end of June we'll be looking at the data and finding it difficult to find people with this illness, if the current trends continue in the deaths.

"But we will continue to have these sporadic up and downs for about four to six weeks."

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He added: "People shouldn't panic or get out of context if suddenly, say, we've had no deaths for four days, and now we've had eight or ten, because we'll see that as you go down lower numbers, [there will be] a bit more variation in the actual data."

Meanwhile, at the press briefing on Tuesday, ministers sought to defend the Government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis in care homes amid accusations their pandemic planning was inadequate and focused on the NHS.

The head of care home providers, Professor Martin Green, said infected patients were discharged from hospitals into homes, while NHS medical support was withdrawn.

New figures suggest around 15,000 care home residents have died with the virus.

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Prof Green told MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee that despite promises from ministers, there were still huge issues with testing, with results lost and staff waiting eight to 10 days to find out if they have coronavirus.

He said: “We should have been focusing on care homes from the start of this pandemic.

“What we saw at the start was a focus on the NHS which meant care homes often had their medical support from the NHS withdrawn.

“We also had the disruption of our supply chains for PPE (personal protective equipment).

“We also saw people being discharged from hospital when we didn’t have the testing regime up and running.

“So despite what’s been said, there were cases of people who either didn’t have a Covid-19 status, or who were symptomatic, who were discharged into care homes.

“Now given that care homes are full of people with underlying health conditions, I think we should’ve looked at focusing on where the people at most risk were, rather than thinking about a particular organisation.”

But Environment Secretary George Eustice rejected the assertion that the Government had made mistakes over its handling of care homes during the crisis.

However, he acknowledged some residents with asymptomatic coronavirus may have been discharged from hospital.

Mr Eustice told the daily Downing Street press conference: “We don’t accept the caricature that we took an approach that was wrong.

“Very early on in this epidemic, we had protocols in place for care homes, there was guidance as to how they should approach things.

“As the situation developed, then more stringent policies were introduced by way of policy around discharge, and we got to the point where everybody was tested before discharge.

“But in those early weeks there will have been some instances where people may have been discharged who were asymptomatic, there may have been some, a small number of instances, where they may have been showing symptoms but would have been isolating.

“That was the guidance at the time that was in place, but we have strengthened that very much ever since then, we now have testing and a rigorous discharge policy that’s in place and that is getting stronger all the time.”